Tag: social

Allow me to introduce you to a little know business gem: Timpson. It is a family business operating 1000+ stores, annual turnover in the region of £200m, and annual profits of £10m+. Today, this organisation (and its leadership) is on my mind again. Why? Because of what I saw and read on LinkedIn.

This is the photo that captured my attention:

The last time I looked there were 240+ likes. Here are some of the comments that caught my attention:

“Leadership at its best”;

“Hats off to CEO James Timpson”;

“Very thoughtful and caring”;

“Pay it forward”;

“Brilliant. More selfless acts needed”;

“If another company did this it would probably seem like a publicity stunt, but Timson’s record speaks for itself..”; and

“How many Advocates and how much good feeling does that create for Timpsons who are already an exceptionally socially responsible company…Great win win!”

Why did these comments catch my attention? Because these comments provider a pointer towards the following:

The shape-look-feel-character of humanistic leadership: authentic as opposed to faking it in order to manipulate others (publicity stunt); thoughtful and caring as opposed to thoughtlessness and indifference to our shared humanity – where humanity is hidden under the labels of customer, employee, supplier; and selflessness leading to paying it forward as recognition of one’s good fortune and shared humanity as opposed to unlimited greed dressed up in fine sounding words like maximising revenues and profits.

The impact human-centred leaders make on us: we tend to think of this kind of leadership as “leadership at its best”; and those who exercise this kind of leadership call forth respect – when we are authentic we take our hats off only to those whom we genuinely admire, esteem, respect in terms of their virtues and/or skills.

The benefits that tend to show up as result of exercising humanistic leadership: the good feelingthat this kind of leadership calls forth in just about everyone except sociopaths and those professionally trained as economists and MBAs; and the advocacy-loyalty that is automatically brought into play as a result of evoking this good feeling.

I am clear that we (those of us living in the UK and USA) live in transactional, individualistic, non-humanistic, competitive cultures. So those of us, who are ‘smart’, are likely to be tempted to fake humanistic leadership to get the benefits (respect, status, increased profits, wealth) without paying the necessary ‘price’. So here’s the paradox. The exercise of humanistic leadership does generate advocacy, loyalty, revenues, and higher profits. However, this is not the case when humanistic leadership is exercised for the sake of harvesting these benefits. Why? Because, one can only fake it so long before true intentions leak out and are detected by those who are being manipulated.

Is Timpson faking it? Is this offer of free outfit cleaning for the unemployed merely a publicity stunt? This is what Justin Parkinson of the BBC says on this blogpost:

The problem is that getting suits dry cleaned usually costs in the vicinity of £10, which can be prohibitive for unemployed people looking to return to work.

The offer, in place since 1 January, has been taken up by hundreds of people, Timpson chief executive James Timpson says. “When people are going for interview it’s important to look and feel smart and getting their suit dry cleaned is part of that,” he adds. “It makes people more confident and gives them that 2% extra chance of getting a job. We just thought it was a really good idea.”

In my experience, one of the core challenges of taking a humanistic approach to doing business (including the exercise of human-centred leadership) is that we have a dim view of human nature. Our actions show that we are convinced that if we appear ‘soft’ then we will be taken. So how has this offer turned out for Timpson? Here is more from that BBC blog:

“We just trust customers,” says Timpson. “We had one lady who came in with a cocktail dress and we told her to hold on. But that’s the only instance of a customer taking advantage.”

What is going on here? How to make sense of this? It occurs to me that somewhere deep down in us, our human decency is intact. Put differently, for most of us, there is something deep in our being that makes us think twice and usually prevents us from taking advantage of those who show concern for us, our fellow human beings, and our shared humanity. Where we transgress and do take advantage of the kindness of others, guilt comes into play. That is the price we pay for not honouring the best of our humanity.

Now you may be wondering what this has to do with Customer. I say take a look at what has been done in the name of customer service. Take a look at CRM. Take a look at customer loyalty programmes. Take a look at Customer Experience. Take a look at all that has happened and all the money-effort that has been expended in the name of the Customer. Now ask yourself how it is that despite all of this customer loyalty and employee engagement are stagnant – at best. There is your answer: humanistic leadership (and management practices) are the access to calling forth the good feeling that in turn leads to engagement-loyalty-advocacy: from your people, from your suppliers/partners, and from your customers.

Note: At the invitation of Bob Thompson, I write the Human-Centred Leadership column on CustomerThink.com. This conversation was published there last month.

You may have noticed I have not been conversing much recently here on this Blog. I have been dealing with back pain for the last six weeks. This has limited by ability to do that which it takes to create-share conversations. I hope to back in action soon. If you missed me then I thank you for your patience. If you didn’t, excellent: now you know that you are wasting your time-life listening to me, please go and do something that lights you up!

What Occurred Over The Last Week

It occurs to me that I have not been well for at least a week. Almost every night for at least the seven days my sleep has been fitful and I have been luck when I have been able to get 3 – 4 hours of interrupted sleep. Some nights I have slept downstairs so as not to disturb my wife.

I ate one light meal on Monday. I ate one light meal on Tuesday. I ate one normal meal on Wednesday as I was really hungry. Shortly thereafter I found myself in the bathroom throwing up. I ate a light meal on Thursday. And I ate nothing on Friday lunchtime even though I was hungry and my two colleagues did their very best to persuade me to eat something!

In amidst all of this: I turned up at client sites to join my colleagues and do the work that was necessary; accepted the responsibility for generating the structure and writing most of the final presentation deck (40+slides); worked at least 8 hours a day whilst often in pain or just uncomfortable; and sat amongst my colleagues on Friday whilst the three of us finalised and delivered the final presentation to our client. Once it was all finished, I told one of my colleagues that I was looking forward to going home, eating something, and resting.

Why did I not chose the easier option of just calling in sick? In fact, my wife seeing my state encouraged me to take care of my health: phone in sick, visit the doctor, rest-recover and then get back to work.

Please notice that nobody had to devise mechanisms (rewards and punishments) or engage in propaganda (empty misleading talk in tune with most marketing communications) to get me motivated and engaged. I did not do what I did because of fear of punishment. I did not do what I did because of money – bonus. I did not do what I did because someone was call me onto the stage and say great words about me and hand me trinkets.

Why Did I Do What I Did?

I did what I did because it was never an option to let my friend and team leader (Richard Hornby) down! I knew that there is nobody else (with the appropriate skills) available to take over that work that is my domain – except for Richard. And I knew that Richard was already overstretched due to working on multiple engagements. I did what I did out of love:

“What we will do for love will always be far more powerful than what we will do for money. What we can do together will always be far greater than what we can do alone.” Pavithra Mehta

Money, no amount of money, can buy genuine care-love-meaning-community. And that is what most, or at least many, of us yearn for, live for, and ultimately allows us to face death. Interestingly, what Richard, Matthew and I were able to do together, and indeed did together as one team, was more than what each of us did alone. This became clear when we put our presentation together from our individual pieces, and took what did not work and reworked it (by contributing, listening, debating, building on one another’s insights-contributions) and ended up with a great presentation: a sentiment share by us and our client.

Please notice that I did not need anybody to preach to me on the value of social, or collaboration. Nor did I need people to provide me with social/collaboration tools. Indeed, I did not use any. Email and the phone were sufficient to keep in touch with my colleagues and do that which was necessary.

The Poverty of The Workplace

It occurs to me that the workplace is a place of poverty. What kind of poverty? A poverty of relationships of genuine caring (for one another as fellow human beings), mutual respect, and collaboration. A poverty of that which calls forth the very best of us: beautiful workplaces, meaningful work, climate of solidarity, and a context of love.

Am I alone in this? Look into yourself, look into those whom you know, and answer the questions for yourself:

would you prefer to work in a beautiful environment or an ugly even bland environment?

would you prefer to work in an environment of love or one of fear?

would you prefer to do work that shows up as meaningful work or meaningless work?

would you prefer to be enmeshed in caring-respectful-collaborative relationships or find yourself enmeshed in relationships of blame-judgement-competition?

Ask yourself what you want to have inscribed on your headstone? “Here lived someone who was loved and loved others, one that made a contribution, touched lives, left behind a better world.” Or would you prefer “Here lies a person who spent their days and their life doing meaningless work in bland/ugly environments full of people who did not care for one another….”?

An Invitation

I share with you two quotes which show up as worth reflecting on:

“What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.” Unknown

“Living life without making a difference is to be amongst the living dead.”Ron Travisano

I invite you to put love into your relationships, into the workplace, and into the world. I promise you that if you do so then you will enrich existence: yours (as lived-experienced) and all whom you touch. How do I know? Because amidst all the pain that I experienced over the last week, my existence was also rich: all that I was doing was doing for my friend who was counting on me.

If you find that which I write her speaking to you then I invite you to check out this blog.

This third post completes the series of posts based on the Nunwood’s 2013 annual customer experience excellence report (The UK’s Top Customer Brands: How They Achieve Success). You can find the earlier posts here:

Who leads the “Value Top 10” table? Giff Gaff. What allows this brand, this organisation to create this kind of value for its customers?

Giff Gaff is something of an anomaly in the field of mobile communications. A SIM only provider with no high street presence, it is entirely focused on delivering best value. Giff Gaff gives back to their members through savings – cutting away costs that rivals have to cover such as physical stores, customer service teams …..

A quirky company Giff Gaff say you are not a customer – you are a member of the family. Members of the Giff Gaff family save considerable amounts on their purchases and receive rewards for promoting services and contributing to their on-line care.

The concept of membership, being part of something, is powerful one and for Giff Gaff it leads to a highly engaged and hugely active online community.

Drawing its name from a Scottish phrase for mutual giving, this community is encouraged to share ideas, potential rewards and price plans via forums. Many unique selling points and technical developments are credited to members…….

Fundamental to its success has been the unique way they have put customers at the very centres of their business…… The notion of a common sense of purpose with your customers is a powerful one.

What I want to draw your attention to the following:

1. It occurs to me that Giff Gaff is inventing-experimenting with-perfecting a new way of doing business. Not a customer-centred way of doing business. Nor a shareholder centred way of doing business. No, it is deeply immersed in a ‘community-membership’ way of doing business. In this way of doing business, the customer plays many roles in addition to the role of customer: as marketer, as sales person, as R&D advisor, as customer services agent, as a ‘shareholder’…..

2. I am clear that Giff Gaff has got social right because social is the heart-ethos of the business. Social is not a bolt-on. Social is the business. I say mutual giving is the definitive test of an authentically social way of showing up in the world.

3. Will Giff Gaff do to the mobile industry what the mini-mills did to the US steel industry? That is to say is Giff Gaff show up for me as an example of a low end disruptive innovator according to Clayton Christensen model. Or will its parent O2 ‘kill’ it like GM did with Saturn when Saturn became a threat to GM’s way of doing business?

As a member of Giff Gaff I notice that Giff Gaff is travelling the path that Amazon/Bezos has travelled. Which path? The path of listening to customers and using this listening to figure out which products-services to introduce next. For example, Giff Gaff is no longer a SIM only provider. Giff Gaff now sells a small range of the popular phones.

If you want to learn more about Giff Gaff then I recommend reading the following posts:

Want to learn more

If you want to learn more about these brands (Giff Gaff, Butlins, QVC, Tesco Mobile), or any of the other Top 10 UK Customer Experience brands, I suggest that you download-read Nunwood’s annual Customer Experience report: CEE-Centre-2013-UK-Full-Report

“I’m thinking, as a 6-year-old, 7-year-old, what are their thoughts?” she said. “So I said to them, ‘I need you to know that I love you all very much and that it is going to be okay.’ Because I thought it was the last thing they were ever going to hear.” Caitlin Roig, a 29-year-old teacher, Sandy Hook Elementary School

As I write this I have tears on my cheeks – of sorrow and of gratitude. I am reminded that I am father to three children. I am reminded the awesome contribution many teachers made to my life. I can remember the care that was bestowed upon me during those early years when care/love is particularly important. And I know that I am in a position to write this only because my fellow human beings saved my life twice. The first time was when I was 7 years old and went into a coma as a result of an automobile accident. The second time was when an unusually kind, alert and ‘can do’ doctor told me to get into his BMW and raced me to the emergency room at the local hospital where the right people were ready to sedate me and operate on me. I owe my life – as it is and as it is not – in large measure to my fellow human beings.

What has this to do with leadership, organisational effectiveness, and customer experience? A good question and let me address it. I have done process design and business re-engineering. I have done cost-cutting and organisational re-structuring. I have done the metrics side of things. I have done technology selection and implementation. I have done recruitment, induction, job design… I have done and still do strategy. None of these show up either on their own or in combination as the true source of organisational success.

My stance on leadership, organisational effectiveness, employee engagement and service was shaped in my days in corporate recovery. The days when I would turn up unannounced (either individually or part of a team) and be responsible for running a business that had gone into receivership or administration (for those of you in the USA think Chapter 11). The challenge was to call forth the best of the people in the organisation whose future looked bleak. And that happened in every one of the organisations. There was something that showed up brightly which I have found to be missing in ‘normal’ organisations. And which does not reside in strategy, in technology, in metrics, in processes, in people/culture. What is this difference?

As I read about what occurred at Sandy Hook and in particular the courage, the heroism, the sacrifice made by the principal and the teachers I am face to face with that which I noticed in my corporate recovery days: the power of the human spirit to transcend the most difficult of circumstances.

I am clear that the difference that makes the difference is the human spirit. When the ultimate crazy request was made – to risk their lives to save the lives of their ‘customers’, the young children in their care – the teachers (and the janitor) at Sandy Hook did not fail their customers! What was it that enabled the staff to rise up and meet that challenge? Was it strategy? Was it policy? Was it process? Was it KPIs? Was it money/rewards/promotion? Was it technology? No, it was the human spirit coming to life in those teachers when it was summoned.

And that is the central issue for me. Our organisations – private and public – do not make space, do not call forth the best of us: our human spirit. On the contrary, our organisations, indeed our society, does the reverse it shuts out and/or suppresses the human spirit. We do this by our obsession with the the technology of strategy, of process, of metrics and measurement, of people practices, and of IT.

How to end this post? It occurs to me that I am a stand for the human spirit in business, in organisations, in life itself. And that pretty much is the underlying thread in what I write here on The Customer Blog (and on my second blog Possibility, Transformation & Leadership). And how I aspire to show up in the world.

No, I wish to end this post with a dedication to the principal of Sandy Hook – Dawn Hochsprung – who showed what real leadership is. And to Victoria Soto who gave her life to save the children in her care. And the humanity of Caitlin Roig who thinking that the end was about to come told the children that she loved them all very much. Why? She wanted them, her ‘customers’, to experience love, being loved.

I cannot resist this, the urge is too strong. To all those who talk social and confuse it with social media and the self oriented marketing, selling, chit-chat and vanity that takes place there, I say that the true meaning of social is the social that showed up through the actions of the principal and teachers at Sandy Hook. I say true social is the social as expressed by Caitlin Roig: “‘I need you to know that I love you all very much and that it is going to be okay.’ Because I thought it was the last thing they were ever going to hear.”

I am proud to be member of the human race. And I say I will continue to be a stand for the magnificence of the human spirit in all walks of life. I have a question for you: what would show up if you treated your customers with the kind of care/love that the Sandy Hook teachers did for the ‘customers’ in their care?

Did I make a ridiculous fuss about nothing?

Recently, a reader (pxfast) read this post on Klassic Books and commented:

“You are making a ridiculous fuss about nothing. Leaving feedback is a normal part of online trade so we know whom to trust. It was request, not an order, although the email could have been worded slightly differently so as to be clear it was optional. But is there enough time to consider all nit-pickers? What your list of questions has to do with the email I do not know, but you seem to be super-sensitive about your own affairs. They were simply confirming your order and politely requesting an optional acknowledgment in return, not a surly reply.”

I like to think of myself as a learner so I revisited this post and the memory of my experience. Then I went and looked at instances where I had been complimentary about the communications of book companies. Three instance came to mind:

If you look through these three cases of communication and compare them with case of Klassic books, I am confident that you will notice the following regarding the communications:

a) Better World Books and the RocketSurgery Crew are being of service to me – making my life easier and/or enriching my life. Whereas the Klassic Books communication is focussed on its needs and asking/expecting me to make the time/effort to fulfil their needs.

b) The tone of the Better World Books and the Rocket Surgery Crew communications lands as human/warm – human talking to a fellow human being possible across a cafe table. Whereas the tone of Klassic Books shows up as corporate/cold – lacking that human touch.

I say it is possible that I misinterpreted the intent of Klassic Books. I say it is possible that I read into their email to me what was not in the email. I say it is quite possible that I have been ‘unfair’. And the issue is that my experience is not as such. My head may speak this way, my heart does not.

My experience is that Klassic Books expected me to provide them a good customer review simply because they delivered a book on time. Something that shows up as ‘table stakes’ of being an Amazon partner and getting my business. And when I did not provide them with the review they sent me a second email and told me off for being a ‘naughty customer’: We once again request you to leave your valued feedback on this purchase.”

What stance can you take regarding your communications to your customers?

Before I dive into this I wish to point out that the lack of communication (including none at all) is powerful in itself. Why? Because, no communication communicates! I hope that you get that. Now let’s dive into the matter of communication and its relationship to customer-centricity and leadership.

– the communication will make an impact leaving the customer thinking more or less highly of you and feeling closer or more distant towards your organisation; and

– the communication will elicit a response – a non-response is a powerful response if you listen for it.

Which is my way of saying that when you communicate – and you cannot help communicating because you are always communicating – you act on your customers. And when you act on your customers they respond, they communicate to you.

Now my question is this, who is responsible for the response that your communication calls forth from your customers? It occurs to me that you can stand in one of two places.

1. You can make the customer responsible for his/her response to your communication. This often leads to labelling and blaming when customers don’t respond as expected. Customers are labelled ‘stupid’, ‘lazy’, ‘greedy’ and so forth. And they are blamed for not responding to requests, filling in forms incorrectly, asking ‘stupid’ questions, wasting company time…. This the default stance of many/most folks and organisations. Why? The charitable view is that we are blinded by our intentions and not the consequences of our communication. The less charitable view is that we will do just about anything to ‘look good and avoid looking bad”.

Notice that this is what pxfast – the reader who triggered this post – is doing. He is criticising me and other customers like me as ‘nit-pickers’. Have you noticed the negative labels being applied? “Ridiculous fuss” and “nit-picker” If a customer is labelled a “nit-picker” and “causing a ridiculous fuss” then the logical thing to do is to ignore that customer. I call that a ‘get out of jail’ card being played.

2. You can take responsibility for the customer’s response to your communication. This is taking responsibility as in I am the author of this response. Or I am the ’cause in the matter of’ the communication that I have received from the customer. This mode of being is rare at the individual, group or organisational level.

If you want to show up as a leader and/or as a customer centric organisation then embrace responsibility as opportunity

I say that if you want to show up as a leader then it is necessary for you to own up to your communication: how it lands, what impact it makes, and what response/s it generates.

I say that if you want your organisation to show up customer-centric then all the people, especially those who communicate with your customers, must take responsibility for their communication and the communication of your whole organisation: how it lands for your customers, what impact it makes in/on your customers, and the responses it generates from your customers.

Why take responsibility? Because, it is the most powerful place to stand if you wish to be effective. When you take responsibility you let go of the option/luxury of labelling/blaming customers. Instead you listen for how your communication lands, what impact it makes, and what responses it generates. And where there is a difference to what you expected you say to yourself “How interesting! I wonder what I did to cause that? I wonder what I need to do more of? And what do I need to do less of? And what do I need to do differently to show up the way that I want to show up in the lives of my customers and generate the kind of response that I am up for generating?”

When you have that kind of listening then you have all that you need to become a master of communication; every leader has to be/become a master of communication; and every customer-centric organisation has to be a master of communication. And if you have not noticed then ‘social’ is all about effective communication between you, your people (employees), your customers.

In this post I want to share my take on three items of news that caught my attention recently: Stephen Hester’s insights into the banking industry; Apple’s iOS6 maps fiasco; and the Madrid barman who has became a hero in Spain.

The culture of greed is not limited to the banking industry, it is an inherent feature of ‘business as usual’

Stephen Hester the CEO of the bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland gave a speech on rebuilding banking at the London School of Economics on Monday. This quote in particular got my attention as it gets to the heart of the matter:

“We cannot afford to just fix Libor, to just fix money laundering controls, or to just fix the way we market our products. We have to address the root cause of the industry’s failings…”

What are the root causes of the banking industry’s failings? Let’s listen to what Mr Hester said:

“It is possible to look at the many scandals that have hit banking in recent years and see them as individual episodes of bad judgment or wrong behaviours….. In fact, I think it’s more accurate to say that most of them are related to one big scandal: banks have simply not been good enough servants of their customers in the recent past.”

“The banking industry in the decade preceding the crisis was focused on income, it expanded too fast, prioritised sales over service and failed to properly balance the interests of its customers and shareholders with those of its managers.”

I say that the push for sales, income and profits is central to many companies, many industries, many economies and is in fact central to ‘business as usual’. And within the context of ‘business as usual’ where ‘bad profits’ are pursued because it is too much work to come up with products, services, experiences that create genuine value for customers (and thus generate ‘good profits’) authentic customer-centricity cannot take root and flourish. So the challenge is culture change. Not just culture change at the organisational level, nor at the industry level, nor at the business level. No, the culture change has to happen at the societal level.

Apple: Tim Cook, iOS6 and the Maps application

I notice that Apple has been under pressure and Tim Cook has done the right thing by apologising. Within that context, the following got my attention:

“At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.”

How many CEOs can get up and say that with conviction? How many CEOs would be believed? Which tells me that the number of companies that are committed to making world-class products that deliver the best experience possible for customers is rare. Which kind of explains why Apple shows up as Apple as opposed to the multitude of other companies.

The other thing that occurs to me is that making that apology is a wise move: as human beings we tend to ‘forgive’ those that apologise. And I suspect that the Maps saga will not dent the Apple brand provided that it is just a one-off occurrence.

What can we learn about social from the Madrid barman?

You can say that I am not a fan of social. Why? It occurs to me that is so much chatter on social and so little understanding of social. Yes, the human being is social being. Yet, that does not mean that we can collapse social with socializing. Social is more than idle chit chat over social media. Social is more than meeting up with friends at a cafe or restaurant. Social is more than meeting up with folks that you like (or are interesting in) for drinks after the end of the conference day. Social is more than sticking in some social technologies in the work place.

In its fullest/truest sense social is ‘care and concern for our fellow human beings. It is about moving from a place of ‘exclusion to inclusion’. It is about collapsing the distance from ‘me’ and ‘you’ and becoming ‘us’. It is putting into practice our humanity – the best of our humanity. It is being up for and delighting in the well being of our fellow human beings. And acting when that well-being is at stake.

With that in mind I share the following story about the Spanish barman that put his well-being at stake to protect demonstrators. And here is the video:

It occurs to me that if you watch this video, really watch this video, then you will get a flesh+blood for what social is, what social takes, and why social is so powerful. And if you do not get it then it occurs to me that you can do all that you want on social media and it matters not, you are not social, you are just being selfish through social channels.

And finally

Without genuine care for our customers all the customer talk is just that talk. And genuine care for our customers means a concern for humanity. To paraphrase the words of the Spanish barman, “There is excessive focus on short-term profits. I am for companies being profitable, but above the profitability, there is humanity. Let’s make enduring profits by playing the long-term game of people-profits-planet.”